Ladybugs are actually Lady Beetles. They lead an interesting and varied life I know nothing about. Those interested can read about it HERE. My interest in them is fueled strictly by the fact they are excellent accessories to flower photographs.

In this case, they are the main subjects, and the flowers are the accessories.

The Seven-Spotted Lady Beetle, a European import, is a common sight on the flowers in our flower beds. Even so, I don’t often get good shots of this ally in the fight against The Aphids. The Salvia shot above is one I consider decent.

But this post is about this following series. Note: This next one might be a Nine-Spotted Lady Beetle. The front spots are . . . spotty, so I am not sure of anything other than it’s a Lady Beetle.

The Lady, it seems, liked very much to hang around the daisies. That probably meant my daisies were aphid-infested, and while that is not good news, it did mean I had the chance photograph them with good results.

When I snapped this shot I had not seen the other bug, a Tarnished Plant Bug, adorning one of the petals.

A splendid specimen on its own right, the Tarnished Plant Bug merited its own shot.

But can you spot the other bug in there? I did not see it until I processed the photos.

At this point, I thought I was about to see a Beetle-Bug showdown. I was a bit concerned (as a gentle soul, I get traumatized by violence), but the photographer in me happily snapped away.

But, the Beetle was just wondering about . . . and now we can clearly see the other bug. Normally I would spend hours looking for a positive identification of the sucker, but I don’t have that kind of time.

I dub thee Coccola Occhionero

Had I noticed it, I might have worried for its safety, but the Lady does not seem interested.

It did show me it’s belly . . . maybe it wanted a rub.

This is a nice profile of the critter, a shot I seldom get.

When I snapped this shot I thought that was a Lady Beetle in there . . . it’s not. This is another bug I could not identify, despite its distinctive markings. It looks like a type of Superb Plant Bug, or other beetle, but I could not find anything like it during my cursory search.

I dub thee Catturata Idiotica.

The reason I originally thought it was a Lady Beetle is because of this next series shot on the bud of a daisy.

Not to think that you would be so callous as to try and advertise on other people’s blogs, but we can never be too careful these days. Opportunistic bastards abound, and I just want to make sure you’re not mistaken for one.

What i do not realize is if truth be told how you are no longer really much more neatly-liked than you might be now.
You are so intelligent. You realize therefore considerably when it comes to this matter, made me in my opinion believe it from a lot of numerous angles.
Its like women and men aren’t interested unless it’s
one thing to do with Girl gaga! Your own stuffs outstanding.
Always handle it up!

I used to do that (link directly to the SmugMug gallery) but stopped because WordPress often lost the links. The reason for linking to SmugMug is because I’m never happy with how the photos look in WordPress because they mess with the photos.

But, it was a lot more work since I duplicated a lot of the writing as captions for the photos in SmugMug. The idea was that one could either read the post and glance at the photos, or, really look at the photos and read most of the associated words (if they wanted to). The thing is, few people ever go to SmugMug, and when I posted 70-80 photos in a post, it took me twice as long because I had to write it all over again in SmugMug.

Now, I don’t add captions to the SmugMug photos, and as a quasi-fix toward showing better versions of the photos, I link to a larger version of the photo for anyone interested. And, of course, they can still go to SmugMug and see the photos as large as they want (up to Original size).